


you've got the power and control here

by cold_nights_summer_days



Series: Anchor [18]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comfortember, Day Seventeen, Flashbacks, Gen, Homeless Peter Parker, Hurt Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27612752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_nights_summer_days/pseuds/cold_nights_summer_days
Summary: Day seventeen: flashbacks - just some flashbacks to the beginning of Peter's story!----title from blame by bastille. I like to think that's what Peter is telling himself in terms of taking back over his own life :)
Relationships: Delmar & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Anchor [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1996039
Comments: 11
Kudos: 75
Collections: Comfortember 2020





	you've got the power and control here

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! hope y'all are doing great!
> 
> btw, since I wrote the original fic back in like May, I forgot that I already introduced Delmar into the story later on :) I got too far with this before I realized that, so we'll just pretend that they meet earlier until I go into the other fic and fix it :)
> 
> tw for mentions of skip wescott 
> 
> also: if this feels slightly off, it's because I decided to mess around with the present tense since I haven't written in it in a really long time!

It’s late, and Peter is tired, and all he wants to do is sleep but he can’t. He’s waiting, waiting, waiting, anxious for the moment when that door will open and he will hate himself more than he already does. And then he’s waiting, waiting, waiting, for the moment that it is over and he can try to pretend that it never happened.

Waiting, waiting, waiting. That seems to be all that Peter does these days. He waits for the night to be over, for school to start so that he can drown his thoughts in equations and essays, he waits—oh, he waits _desperately_ —for the moment that he decides that he’s had enough.

He’s waiting, waiting, waiting for the moment that he decides it’s over.

He’s done waiting, Peter decides, on May thirteenth. It’s a horrible Tuesday: cold and rainy outside despite the Spring and today Skip brought home another foster kid. Peter wishes that he had the guts to say out loud what that kid so desperately needs to know, but to voice it is to make it real.

To voice it is to admit it. To voice those horrible things is to give them a space to live in Peter’s mind – but he knows that they’ve been living rent free there for months.

Tonight the waiting is finally over, though. It will be years before he kicks those thoughts out, but tonight is the night that he is done with the person responsible for those thoughts.

Peter waits until it’s over, and sneaks down the hall to take a burning shower. He wants this life – this horrible life that was handed to him on a silver platter—to wash down the drain. He wants it gone. Peter watches the soap and water swirl towards the drain together, and for the first time in a long time, he smiles. It’s not genuine, but it’s something.

After the shower, he packs what little he still had from his old home into his school backpack. His school supplies are left on the desk, though Peter considers dragging the textbooks along just so that Skip has to pay the school back for them. It’s nowhere near what that monster deserves, but for Peter it’s a start. Well, that and stealing some food from his kitchen.

With a rain jacket (was it really his, or did it belong to the one who was here before him?) zipped up tight and his backpack slung over one shoulder, Peter leaves. For the rest of the world this is a quiet affair, but for him, his mind is screaming.

_It’s over! We’re leaving!_ The voice in his mind shouts, something between happiness and nerves tingeing it’s voice.

_Yeah, we did it,_ Peter agrees, leaving the apartment building one last time. He doesn’t even glance back. There was nothing left there for him, anyway. Not even a trace of he used to be.

The first night is rough. A few hours into the night, Peter realizes that he has no plan, no money, and no shelter. These issues are overshadowed by the residual eagerness he feels at his final escape, though. Peter tells himself that he can find a job, he can find somewhere to stay in the abandoned industrial districts. There are tons of abandoned buildings there.

That dream is short lived when every building has mold and triggers his worst allergies. His other dream is dashed when his face begins to show up in newspapers and news reports. **Delinquent Teenager Runs Away** is the headline printed by the Daily Bugle. Peter doesn’t think much of it. From the outside, his record seems completely trashed. Getting sent back by potential families, neglectful foster parents, and now running away had marred the system’s view of him.

Peter knows that he hadn’t exactly thought this through, but he also didn’t regret it. He wasn’t waiting, waiting, waiting for the door to open and his worst nightmare to walk in. It would be worth it in the end.

Right?

One month later, Peter is worried. A bodega down the street from his old apartment agrees to hire him for a few hours under the table. Mr. Delmar is nice and doesn’t ask questions, and Peter’s grateful for it. He notices that sometimes Mr. Delmar slips a few extra dollars into his paycheck and doesn’t mention it.

But even with this, Peter isn’t doing well. He’s losing more weight than he can afford to gain back, and its difficult to find somewhere to sleep in the summer that didn’t feel like a sauna. Not that Peter did much of that, anyway. At night the memories came, and so did the disgusting feeling that came with them.

Peter promises himself that he’ll be fine, and he starts a countdown until the day he turns eighteen. Then it won’t matter that he’s a runaway, because he’ll be a legal adult.

One day, in the middle of the summer, Mr. Delmar stops Peter on his way . . . well not home, but something like that. Anyways, Mr. Delmar stops him and asks Peter if he has somewhere to go tonight. Peter tells him yes, but Mr. Delmar gives him the look that only a dad could give. The “I don’t believe you, but I won’t call you out on your lie” kind of look.

“Well, if you decide that you’re free tonight, Lola’s invited you over for dinner. Here’s the address,” He said, handing Peter a slip of paper. Peter knows that Lola is his wife, but he doesn’t know much about her besides that.

“Oh, um, thanks,” Peter responds awkwardly. Mr. Delmar tells him that dinner is usually at seven, but if he shows up late, that’s perfectly fine, too. Peter nods, and goes about the rest of his day with the dinner invitation in mind.

He does decide to go, because how can he turn down the chance to eat a homecooked meal? Mr. Delmar had never been anything but kind to him. He was one of the few people that Peter still liked in this world.

Peter arrives a few minutes late, but Lola ushers him in with a warm smile and tells him that he can leave his backpack by the door if he wants to. Peter does to avoid seeming weird, but he keeps a constant eye on it. It’s hard not to when his whole life is held in it.

The Delmars are a wonderful family, and Peter eats far more than he would like to admit. Lola doesn’t mind; in fact, she fills his plate for him. Mr. Delmar’s daughter – who’s name he learns to be Maya – looks at him with pity throughout the night. Peter knows she doesn’t mean anything by it, but he doesn’t like it. He didn’t want anyone to pity him.

At the end of the night, Peter thanks them profusely for dinner and heads back out into the summer night with a sense of hope. He can’t explain where it comes from, but something tells him that things might start to look up soon.

Peter turned out to be right. Two weeks later, he crashes into Tony Stark in an attempt to outrun Crazy Knife Guy.

_What a weird life_ I have, Peter thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read more, check out/subscribe to the series!
> 
> [Here's my tumblr! ](https://funky--lil--spider.tumblr.com/)  
>    
> Also, I've opened my comissions if you'd be interested in that!
> 
> [Support me on Ko-Fi, or commission a fic!](https://ko-fi.com/cold_nights_summer_days)


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